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Who Invented Basketball? | Wonderopolis
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Today’s Wonder of the Day was inspired by Vincent. Vincent Wonders, “who invented Basketball” Thanks for WONDERing with us, Vincent!
Dr. James Naismith was a Canadian physical education instructor who invented the game of basketball in 1891 while working at the YMCA Training School in Springfield, Massachusetts.
Dr. Naismith had been challenged to create a new game that could be played indoors in the cold Massachusetts winters to provide an “athletic distraction" to a disruptive group of students.
With a two-week deadline, Dr. Naismith decided to invent a game of skill, finesse, and accuracy, rather than one that relied on pure strength.
He was inspired by a game he had played as a child called “duck on a rock," in which players lob a small rock at a "duck" placed on top of a large rock in an attempt to knock the "duck" off.
Using a soccer ball, two peach baskets placed 10 feet up in the air, nine players on each team, and a set of 13 basic rules, Dr. Naismith invented the game of “basket ball." The first game was played on December 21, 1891.
Initially, players could only advance the ball by passing it. Bouncing the ball along the floor — what we call "dribbling" today — did not become part of the game until later.
Players earned points by successfully tossing the soccer ball into the peach baskets. After each basket that was made, players had to climb a ladder to retrieve the ball from the basket. Iron hoops with open-ended nets didn't come along until 1913!
Interesting basketball facts:
- Dr.
Naismith was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1959. The Basketball Hall of Fame is now called the Naismith Memorial Hall of Fame. - The first college basketball game was played on January 18, 1896, when the University of Iowa hosted a game with the University of Chicago. The final score was: Chicago 15, Iowa 12.
- U.S. patent #1,718,305 was granted to G.L. Pierce on June 25, 1929, for the first version of what we now recognize as the "basketball."
- “March Madness" began in 1939, when the first NCAA tournament took place at the University of Illinois.
- Basketball became an official Olympic sport at the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin, Germany.
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Try It Out
Are you ready to play basketball? Be sure to explore the following activities with a friend or family member:
- When James Naismith invented the game of basketball, he came up with an initial set of 13 rules for the game.
Discuss why you think rules are necessary in sports and other areas of life. What would happen if we didn't have rules? If you could change one of the rules of basketball, which would it be? Why? - What sports do you like to play? Have you ever thought about what types of sports people in other parts of the world play? If you want a good laugh, visit this site to learn more about 10 Weird Sports from Around the World!
- If you're up for a challenge try to dream up a brand-new game of your own. What's the name of your new game? Is it a team game like soccer or an individual game like tennis? What type of ball is used? Is the game played indoors, outdoors, or both? What does the field look like? How do you score points? How many players can play? Exercise your imagination. The sky's the limit. You never know when you might come up with the next great idea in sports! Devise a set of rules for your new game. If you want, paint or draw a picture that explains your new game.
Wonder Sources
- http://www.
whoinventedbasketball.com/ - http://www.basketball.org/who-invented-basketball/
- http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blbasketball.htm
- http://inventors.about.com/od/inventorsalphabet/a/James_Naismith.htm
- http://www.life123.com/sports/basketball/basketball-facts/basketball-facts.shtml
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Where Basketball was Invented: The History of Basketball
Where Basketball Originated
It was the winter of 1891-1892. Inside a gymnasium at Springfield College (then known as the International YMCA Training School), located in Springfield, Mass., was a group of restless college students. The young men had to be there; they were required to participate in indoor activities to burn off the energy that had been building up since their football season ended.
The gymnasium class offered them activities such as marching, calisthenics, and apparatus work, but these were pale substitutes for the more exciting games of football and lacrosse they played in warmer seasons.
James Naismith, The Person Who Invented Basketball
The instructor of this class was James Naismith, a 31-year-old graduate student. After graduating from Presbyterian College in Montreal with a theology degree, Naismith embraced his love of athletics and headed to Springfield to study physical education—at that time, a relatively new and unknown academic discipline—under Luther Halsey Gulick, superintendent of physical education at the College and today renowned as the father of physical education and recreation in the United States.
As Naismith, a second-year graduate student who had been named to the teaching faculty, looked at his class, his mind flashed to the summer session of 1891, when Gulick introduced a new course in the psychology of play. In class discussions, Gulick had stressed the need for a new indoor game, one “that would be interesting, easy to learn, and easy to play in the winter and by artificial light.
” No one in the class had followed up on Gulick’s challenge to invent such a game. But now, faced with the end of the fall sports season and students dreading the mandatory and dull required gymnasium work, Naismith had a new motivation.
Two instructors had already tried and failed to devise activities that would interest the young men. The faculty had met to discuss what was becoming a persistent problem with the class’s unbridled energy and disinterest in required work.
During the meeting, Naismith later wrote that he had expressed his opinion that “the trouble is not with the men, but with the system that we are using.” He felt that the kind of work needed to motivate and inspire the young men he faced “should be of a recreative nature, something that would appeal to their play instincts.”
Before the end of the faculty meeting, Gulick placed the problem squarely in Naismith’s lap.
“Naismith,” he said. “I want you to take that class and see what you can do with it.
”
So Naismith went to work. His charge was to create a game that was easy to assimilate, yet complex enough to be interesting. It had to be playable indoors or on any kind of ground, and by a large number of players all at once. It should provide plenty of exercise, yet without the roughness of football, soccer, or rugby since those would threaten bruises and broken bones if played in a confined space.
Much time and thought went into this new creation. It became an adaptation of many games of its time, including American rugby (passing), English rugby (the jump ball), lacrosse (use of a goal), soccer (the shape and size of the ball), and something called duck on a rock, a game Naismith had played with his childhood friends in Bennie’s Corners, Ontario. Duck on a rock used a ball and a goal that could not be rushed. The goal could not be slammed through, thus necessitating “a goal with a horizontal opening high enough so that the ball would have to be tossed into it, rather than being thrown.
”
Naismith approached the school janitor, hoping he could find two, 18-inch square boxes to use as goals. The janitor came back with two peach baskets instead. Naismith then nailed them to the lower rail of the gymnasium balcony, one at each end. The height of that lower balcony rail happened to be ten feet. A man was stationed at each end of the balcony to pick the ball from the basket and put it back into play. It wasn’t until a few years later that the bottoms of those peach baskets were cut to let the ball fall loose.
Naismith then drew up the 13 original rules, which described, among other facets, the method of moving the ball and what constituted a foul. A referee was appointed. The game would be divided into two, 15-minute halves with a five-minute resting period in between. Naismith’s secretary typed up the rules and tacked them on the bulletin board. A short time later, the gym class met, and the teams were chosen with three centers, three forwards, and three guards per side.
Two of the centers met at mid-court, Naismith tossed the ball, and the game of “basket ball” was born.
The history of the emergence and development of basketball in brief - Go-Sport
The history of the emergence of basketball
July 2, 2019
Student basketball in 1947
The history of basketball has 130 years. We will talk about who invented basketball and how, as well as about the periods and stages of its formation as a popular sport.
Who invented basketball?
James Naismith, who taught at the Youth Christian Association (YCA) American College in Springfield at the end of 19century. Naismith was looking for a new way to get college students involved in sports. In those days, students were engaged only in gymnastic exercises, which bored them very quickly. James Naismith has developed a new outdoor game to spice up boring gymnastics.
James Naismith, photo: www.art-pr.eu
The first basketball match took place on December 21, 1891.
Naismith fixed two fruit baskets to the railing of the balconies, divided the students into two teams, and gave them a homemade ball. The goal of the game was the same as in modern basketball - to throw the ball into the basket. The team that threw the ball more times won.
The game was radically different from modern basketball. Initially, there was no dribbling, and the players simply threw it to each other, moving a short distance across the court, on which there was practically no marking. To get the ball out of the basket, the players had to climb a ladder.
When did the first rules appear?
In 1892. Naismith and the students were satisfied with the game with practically no rules only at first. Over time, there was a need for a clear regulation of the matches, because sometimes even the fans on the balcony intervened in the course of the game - they caught the ball and threw it into the basket. At 1892, James Naismith compiled the first 13-point set of basketball rules.
In the same year, physical education teacher Senda Berenson of a private women's college in Northampton, Massachusetts, adapted the rules for women's teams.
The new rules were revised and supplemented after the very first matches. The fans continued to "hooligan" and forced Naismith to come up with a shield that protected the basket. In 1893, the fruit basket went down in history, giving way to the usual mesh ring. A year later, the first official basketball rules were approved, which were valid throughout the United States.
Basketball court markings and dimensions
Basketball history
In the US, basketball was distributed to schools as part of physical education classes. Even before the beginning of the 20th century, basketball appeared in Canada, where college and university students also liked it. James Naismith promoted basketball in the United States, and the MXA college, where the first game took place, regulated the rules of the game for about the first ten years of basketball's existence.
Later, two organizations picked up the baton at the MXA College at once: the National Collegiate Athletic Association and the Amateur Athletic Union. They were responsible for popularizing basketball in America. Already at 189In 8, supporters of the new sport tried to create the first official association of teams - the National Basketball League. However, this organization lasted only five years, and in the meantime basketball itself got out of North America.
Milton Hershey Industrial School Basketball Team
When did basketball go international?
Closer to the twenties of the XX century. Basketball first appeared in Asian countries with which the United States had active trade and diplomatic relations. The first basketball teams outside the United States appeared in Japan, China and the Philippines. Then basketball appeared in South America and Europe.
A special role in the international popularization of basketball was played by the 1904 Summer Olympics in St.
Louis, in which the Americans staged an exhibition tournament among teams from several nearby cities. Later, at the 1924 and 1928 Olympics, basketball was also introduced as a demonstration sport.
In the 1920s, national basketball federations appeared in dozens of countries around the world. At the same time, the first official international meetings were held. For example, at 19In 1919, a basketball tournament was held between the army teams of the USA, France and Italy, and in 1923, France hosted the first international women's basketball tournament in the history of basketball with the participation of teams from the USA, England and Italy.
The International Basketball Federation (FIBA) was founded in Geneva in 1932 and its first members were eight countries: Argentina, Greece, Italy, Latvia, Portugal, Romania, Sweden and Czechoslovakia. In 1935, the International Olympic Committee recognized basketball as an Olympic sport, and in 1935In 1936, the first ever set of Olympic medals in basketball was played in Berlin.
The first Olympiad was won by the founders of basketball: the US team beat Canada in the final (19:8). During the Olympics in Berlin, the first FIBA International Congress took place, at which the unified international rules of basketball were adopted.
Wilton Chamberlain (the first player to score from above in official games), photo: redbull.com
When did basketball appear in Russia?
The first basketball teams in Russia appeared at 1906 on the basis of the Mayak Sports Society in St. Petersburg. Before the October Revolution of 1917, basketball in Russia developed mainly in the capital of the Russian Empire, St. Petersburg.
Basketball players of the Sports Society "Mayak"
In the early twenties of the XX century, basketball was introduced into the curriculum of students of the Main Military School of Physical Education of Workers and the program of the Moscow Institute of Physical Culture. In 1923 the first championship of the USSR was played. Since 1934, the USSR basketball championship has been held annually.
In 1959, the USSR men's team took part in the World Championship for the first time and won all the matches, but was stripped of their gold medals for refusing to play against the Taiwanese team. The USSR national team did not play with Taiwan for political reasons - because of its enmity with communist China. In 1976, the USSR women's team won the first women's basketball tournament at the Olympic Games.
The history of professional basketball
At the beginning of the 20th century, the first professional teams began to form in the United States. There were even so-called "tour" teams that managed to play 200 matches throughout the country in a year. The most famous of them are the Original Celtics, the New York Renaissance and the Harlem Globtrotters. The Harlem Globtrotters exhibition team still exists today and acts as "goodwill ambassadors" from the United States around the world.
Washington Palace players
Professional basketball began in 1935 with the founding of the Midwestern Basketball Conference.
Two years later, the organization grew into the National Basketball League (NBL), funded by the corporations General Electric, Firestone and Goodyear. Initially, the NBL had 13 corporate teams, but later it grew to 38 clubs. The Basketball Association of America (BAA) formed in 1946 with 16 teams. In 1949, the NBL and the BAA merged to form the most popular basketball league in modern times, the National Basketball Association (NBA).
Basketball: history, rules, inventory, playground
Basketball (from English basket - basket, ball - ball) is an Olympic sport, a sports team game with a ball, the goal of which is to throw the ball into the opponent's basket more times than the opposing team does at the set time. Each team consists of 5 field players.
Contents
- The history of the emergence and development of basketball
- Basketball rules (briefly)
- Basketball field
- Basketball
- Basketball hoop and backboard dimensions
- Refereeing in basketball
- Basketball Federation
The history of the emergence and development of basketball
In 1891, in the United States of America, a young teacher, a native of Canada, Dr.![]()
James Naismith, trying to "revive" gymnastics lessons, attached two fruit baskets to the railing of the balcony and suggested throwing soccer balls into it. The resulting game only remotely resembled modern basketball. There was no question of any management, the players threw the ball to each other and then tried to throw it into the basket. The team that scored the most goals won.
A year later, Naismith developed the first rules of basketball. The very first matches under these rules caused their first changes.
Gradually, basketball from the United States penetrated first to the East - Japan, China, the Philippines, and then to Europe and South America. After 10 years at the Olympic Games in St. Louis, the Americans organized a demonstration tour between the teams of several cities. The Basketball Association of America (BAA) was formed in 1946. The first match under her auspices took place on November 1 of the same year in Toronto between the Toronto Huskies and New York Knickerbockers.![]()
At 19In 1949, the association merged with the US National Basketball League to form the National Basketball Association (NBA). In 1967, the American Basketball Association was created, which for a long time tried to compete with the NBA, but merged with it 9 years later. Today, the NBA is one of the most influential and well-known professional basketball leagues in the world.
The International Amateur Basketball Federation was founded in 1932. The federation includes 8 countries: Argentina, Greece, Italy, Latvia, Portugal, Romania. Sweden, Czechoslovakia. Based on the name, it was assumed that the organization would only lead amateur basketball, however, at 19In 1989, professional basketball players received admission to international competitions, and the word "amateur" was removed from the name.
The very first international match took place in 1904, and in 1936 basketball was included in the program of the Summer Olympic Games.
Basketball rules (briefly)
The rules of the game of basketball changed several times until 2004, when the final version of the rules took shape, which is considered relevant to this day.![]()
- Basketball is played by two teams. Usually a team consists of 12 people, 5 of which are field players, and the rest are considered substitutes.
- Basketball dribbling . Athletes in possession of the ball must move around the field, hitting the floor with it. Otherwise, "carrying the ball" will be counted, and this is a violation of the rules in basketball. Accidentally touching the ball with a body part other than the hand is not considered a foul, unlike purposeful play with the foot or fist.
- A basketball game consists of 4 periods or halves, but the time of each half (play time) varies depending on the basketball association. So, for example, in NBA a match consists of 4 halves of 12 minutes each, and in FIBA each such half lasts 10 minutes.
- Short breaks are provided between periods, and between the second and third periods, the break time is increased.
- The ball thrown into the basket can bring a different number of points to its team.
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If the ball is scored during the free throw, the team earns 1 point. If the ball is thrown from an average or close distance (closer than the 3-point line), then the team is given 2 points. A team earns three points if the ball is scored from behind the three-point line. - If in regular time both teams scored the same number of points, then a 5-minute overtime is assigned, if it ended in a draw, then the next one is assigned and so on until the winner is determined.
- 3 Second Rule - A rule that prohibits any player from the attacking team from being in the free throw area for more than three seconds.
- Basketball two step rule . The player is only allowed to take two steps with the ball, after which he must either shoot or pass.
Basketball field
The playing field for basketball has a rectangular shape and a hard surface. The surface of the site must not have any bends, cracks or any other deformations.![]()
The size of the basketball court must be 28 meters long and 15 meters wide (standard). The height of the ceiling must be at least 7 meters, and on professional sites, ceilings are raised to a height of 12 meters and above. The lighting on the field must be designed so as not to interfere with the movement of the players and must evenly cover the entire court.
Until the end of the 60s, tournaments could be organized outdoors. However, now basketball games are played only in closed areas.
Site marking
- limit lines. Pass along the entire perimeter of the site (2 short front lines and 2 long side lines).
- Central line. It is drawn from one side line to another and at the same time it is parallel to the front lines.
- The central zone is a circle (radius 1.80 m) and is located exactly in the center of the basketball field.
- Three-point lines are semi-circles with a radius of 6.75 m, drawn to the intersection with parallel (front) lines.
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- Free throw lines. The free-throw line is drawn 3.60 m long parallel to each end line so that its far edge is located at a distance of 5.80 meters from the inside edge of the end line, and its middle is on an imaginary line connecting the midpoints of both end lines.
Basketball
The basketball is spherical, painted an approved shade of orange, and has a pattern of eight inlays and black stitching.
| Basketball size | Circumference, mm | Weight, g |
| Size 7 | 750-780 | 567-650 |
| Size 6 | 720-740 | 500-540 |
| Size 5 | 690-710 | 470-500 |
| Size 3 | 560-580 | 300-330 |
Basketball hoop and backboard dimensions
The height of the basketball hoop from the floor level is 3.![]()
05 meters (standard). The diameter of the basketball hoop ranges from 45 cm to 45.7 cm. The ring itself must be painted bright orange. A special net with a length of 40-45 cm is attached to the ring. The basketball hoop is located at a distance of 15 cm from the backboard.
The shield to which the ring is attached also has a number of important parameters. Basketball backboard size: width - 1.8 m, height - 1.05 m. Modern basketball backboards are made of tempered glass.
Refereeing in basketball
At the basketball game there are:
- senior judge and judge;
- timekeeper;
- secretary;
- assistant secretary;
- operator 30 seconds.
Judge uniform:
- gray shirt;
- long black trousers;
- black basketball shoes.
Basketball Federation
- International Basketball Federation (FR. Fédération Internationale de Basketball, FIBA).
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